We are considering a sail charter to Belize. Is it better to charter from San Pedro or Placencia or other mainland ports?

AC is generally just a start and end (if you do a round trip) point for charters. AC has much better provisioning opportunities than PLA, it’s hard to get even the basics at times down there.

As for the sailing and snorkeling, the snorkeling from San Pedro doesn’t start to get really good until you get to English Caye and head South. From there you can hug the reef and snorkel anywhere, most places being untouched by other travelers for months at a time. On the anchorages side your first stop from San Pedro is Caye Caulker, great anchorage and a very laid back island. It’s only a 2 hour or so sail so it’s a nice start to your trip. The next day opens up many options for where you can go, reef side or down the main channel. Caye Caulker to Placencia is about a 10-12 hour run from Caye Caulker so you could even head down there in one day if you wished (better to take 2 or 3 days). The islands in the North tend to be more Mangrove based while the South are Coral island based.

If I had to do it I would do a 10-day out of San Pedro, one-way to Placencia with a re-provision in Placencia or Dangriga (very weather dependent and not an overnight anchorage but better supplies.) A 7 day would work fine but I would push to get further down South after Cay Caulker.